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The garden and the bolt-hole

H1ghgr0ve is a lovely place, tranquil and friendly, with 16 acres of meandering garden, as well as its accompanying farm, set out in various styles, most of them informal and based on greenery rather than flowers. I suspect that it’s best seen earlier in the year, when bulbs or wild flowers or tree blossom are out, but I loved it now too. The policy is to leave as much as possible, so there is ivy on the trees, some visible (small) weeds and heaps of mole-hills on the wild-flower meadow. Around the house there are several small gardens, more laid-out and themed – one is a cottage garden, one has a black and white (more like blues and purples, white and green) theme and another, the most stylised, has a Persian carpet inspiration to its layout. There is also a substantial kitchen garden, although I noticed that the runner and french beans have not been picked recently.

We were taken round in two groups. Mine was led by a very attractive and slender woman called Michele. Her skirt was tight and flared and reminded me of an Edwardian riding skirt.

What I’d liked about our greeting was its friendly informality. I had expected to go through a security check of some sort but, apart from the photo ID check at the gate, we were treated as guests. At the end of the tour, which took rather more than an hour and a half, we were given tea and some divine biscuits (not the usual Duchy ones, but some only available at H1ghgr0ve) and then the shop was mentioned in a generously ‘you might like to’ sort of way. Sorry to be so uncritical, but I even liked the shop.

I was in the second group and Andrew our driver, who had stayed with the coach (it would have been really nice if he could have joined us, which is my only criticism), was already having tea with the first lot. He came over when he saw me and said he’d better go back to the coach. “Actually,” he said, “I’m waiting for ATS to come. We’ve got a puncture.”

If you remember, he had started the day by finding the car he’d expected to use had vanished and had, for a while, believed it was stolen. Then we’d had the breakdown at the motorway service area, when the coach battery had suddenly failed. Now there was a socking great bolt in a rear offside tyre. It could so have not been his day, if he hadn’t met us, for we were lovely to him. Indeed, I went so far as to put a consoling hand on his shoulder.

I left him to it for twenty minutes or so while I pottered round the shop and bought things – I felt he would be happier if not fussed. The whole thing only delayed us by a short while. It was lucky that he had taken a stroll around the car part and noticed a hissing sound…

We were so lucky. I told him that, whilst I’d obviously jinxed this trip (he said that he had only had two coach problems in ten years, and now there were two in a day), I was a useful person to have around, as I am unnaturally lucky. It’s not that things don’t go wrong around me, but they always end well.

Which is obviously a note to finish on, so I’ll spin this out for one more day.

So, the Hand of Z neutralises the Curse of Z! Do know what you mean about being unnaturally lucky; I sometimes wonder whether it’s all to offset some hideous misfortune in the future, but then my own particular unnatural good luck has always been tempered by a pronounced anxious streak…

I take the view that I must not complain if it all goes appallingly wrong tomorrow, as I’ve had several lifetimes-worth of good luck already. I think that to expect the worst, though, would be awfully ungrateful.

I used to be more of a worrier, but the Sage is even luckier than I am and so I learned to be totally trusting.

I don’t exactly tempt fate, I give her a hug and a glass of wine and encourage her to relax too. It’s not fun, spreading doom all the time.

The Unobservant Eye of Z

Dramatis personae:
My husband, Lovely Tim or LT for short (though he is actually tall).
My late husband, the Sage, aka Russell.
My children: Dearest daughter Weeza, who has London Ways, is married to Phil. Their daughter is Zerlina Buttercup and their son is Augustus Bufo. Elder son - Al X, is married to Dilly. Their children are Squiffany Virgilia, Maximus Pugsley and Hadrian Swallow. Younger son - Ro married to Dora and their two-year-old is Rufus Russell.
Big Sister: Wink. She lives in Wiltshire, 230 miles away, but we're much closer than that.
We live with our cat Eloise, a black tortoiseshell half-Ragdoll.
Bantams live in the garden and cats live in the barns but we feed them and they have ambitions to be pets too. In addition, cows come to visit in the summer. Mostly, they stay in the fields. None of them has got a hoof in the door yet.
There is an annexe to the house, where Roses lives and her beloved, Lawrence, spends a lot of time there. Her son, Boy, lives there too.

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Updating takes too much memory, sorry - but then I'm not very young any more, so am hanging on to the memory I've got. Please don't look for any significance in the order - I'm not drunk but I am disorderly.

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Oh, what's the problem? This is hardly Great Literature. I'd appreciate anything taken from here being acknowledged, and I might change my mind if I'm suddenly proclaimed as the Literary Queen of the Blogosphere - but I probably wouldn't. Do what you like, just as long as it doesn't extend to defamation of anyone, even me.

Actually, you want to pass off what I say as your own, I might even be flattered. Let's face it, who cares anyway?